If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life.

To expect reason is where the fallacy lies.

My dad had this rock hard body and would work 12- to 13-hour days. The guys he worked with were scrap-iron guys. Nobody on that road crew had read a book in 10 years, but there was something about the way they lived I really admired.

I think it would be harder for me not to write comedy because the comic view of things is the one that comes most naturally to me.

I think that if people are instructed about anything, it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost, and a price to be paid.

I've never written nearly as much about place as people seem to think I do. I just write about class.

People sometimes get in the habit of being loyal to a mistake.